THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE
Photograph by Maynard Owen Williams
A FLOCK FINDS PASTURAGE IN AN OLD GRAVEYARD OF THE YANGTZE VALLEY
Though well-to-do folk in China have elaborate tombs for their dead, humbler graves are
simply mounds of earth. The latter are not altogether unproductive, since they are generally
overgrown with herbage used as pasture for geese, sheep, goats, or cattle. Still, they often
break up fields in a most inconvenient way, necessitating extra labor in plowing.
aids he can enlist in his everlasting battle
against soil exhaustion are human and
animal manure.
Indeed, the need of these is so great that
poetic inscriptions on special pavilions in
remote localities invite the passer-by to
stop and contribute to the scanty resources
of the neighborhood.
Statistics show that "the international
concessions of the city of Shanghai sold
to one Chinese contractor for $3I,ooo gold
the privilege of collecting 78,000 tons of
waste from the local drains and of remov
ing it to the country for sale to farmers."
A flotilla of canal boats is engaged
throughout the year in this service.
In the West, and more especially in the
United States, "man," to quote Professor
King again, "is the most extravagant ac
celerator of waste the world has ever en
dured. His withering blight has fallen
upon every living thing within his reach,
himself not excepted, and his besom of
destruction in the uncontrolled hands of a
generation has swept into the sea soil fer-
tility which only centuries of life could ac
cumulate. . .
"On the basis of the data of Wolff,
Kellner, and of Carpenter, or of Hall, the
people of the United States and of Eu
rope are (yearly) pouring into the sea,
lakes, and rivers, and into the underground
waters, from 5,794,300 to 12,000,000
pounds of nitrogen, 1,881,900 to 4,151,000
pounds of potassium, and 777,200 to
3,057,600 pounds of phosphorus per mil
lion of adult population, and this waste
we esteem one of the great achievements
of our civilization. Whereas in China all
this is saved and returned to the fields."
WASTE AND REFUSE ARE "FED TO THE
CROPS"
Near every farmhouse, and often in a
proximity to the living rooms that shocks
our olfactory nerves, stand pottery jars
for storing this precious fertilizer, later to
be diluted with water before it is "fed to
the crops."
Household waste, stubble, roughage
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